Plugin management (Linux)

[micksedan]

Wine is a twisty curvy path, and newer is not always better,
I keep the linux update button in a faraday cage!

The larger issue may be that some of the most desirable
pro plugins now require minimum windows 7 or higher for installation,
and choosing that setting in winecfg isn't always enough.

For the time-being, I use wine 1.62 and wineRT 2.1.8
with an older reaper 5.04 and my older plugins play without issues,
but some newer high-end synth demos have failed to scan/load,
yet I have seen reports of those same plugins working in airwave, while
I have had never had a .so made by airwave show any sign of life.
Mad science.

So it's a twisty curvy vinyard, but with enough sonic goodness
to prune and fertilize each year, and harvest some great sounds.

When I have time, I'll try replicating the win7 paths used by Reaktor 6,
and sneakernetting the files into .wine, and then muddwrestle with the new
NI registration app...
Cheers

---

The Donald Trump of SW development

Overtone left the linux market because of very weak sales.
They didn't hide the fact, and simply moved on without
the drama inherant with floss.dll

Spend a few hours with the latest Clinton wiki-leaks,
and it's apparent that their money laundering, frauds,
blunders, and a massive co-ordinated media cover-up,
have been hand-in-hand for ages.

One of the deplorables just got a year in jail, for taking a few pictures
inside a submarine, but wiki-leaks now reveals
a corrupted FBI, DOJ, White House, and their media lapdogs,
are protecting the Clintons from magnitudes worse,
like they are some pathetic endangered species.
Cheers

[micksedan]

I stopped buying to LinuxDSP a few years ago when in a private mail he criticized the quality of Harrison Mixbus 2. Kind of "their eq and comps are really not that good, mine are much more musical". I just thought, "damned, what kind of seller is it ?". I mean, he came with this kind of behaviours in the Linux world, what did he expect ? I'm expecting collaboration rather than backstabbing.

Businesses compete, they rarely collaborate, unless all parties benefit.
As sometimes happens with hardware/software bundles.
Linux users who are used to, if not demanding, freebies, haven't done much to establish
linux as an audio producer powerhouse OS, and have done quite a bit to
alienate musicians using the other two corporate systems.

Linux world? More like 'linux county'. I've yet to see a single commercial linux developer
praise a large number of linux user purchases. I think some of the developements
are attempts to futureproof their business, against some calamity, and some
are looking to enter the embedded markets further down the road. Mixbus
seems quite unique in support for windows developing after linux and mac,
and I see have some controller back in the lab. (Hopes 4 an excellent controller!)

I own Bliss, Zebra2, and Mixbus, and have used linux for audio
for quite a few years. I have just enough linux fanboi platelets to think
before I post, at least on Tuesdays, but I've been done with linux
as a community for a while, although I continue to use the OS,
as it fits my limited needs and skills quite well. Mixbus challenges them!
rtfm hours in the queue.
Cheers

---

I stopped using my OvertoneDSP plugins when I learned that the Linux support ended without notice,

From Overtones web site:
"Existing linux compatible versions are still included in the downloads, and will continue to function (as will activation keys etc) subject to host application / distribution updates. Realistically this means support should be in place for the life of Ubuntu 14.04 LTS which is end of life in 2019."

---

Just found out about this recent thread on Ardour's web site involving Ardour and OvertoneDSP developers. For those interested in details:

https://community.ardour.org/node/13684

Wow, that seems to be the trigger why OverToneDSP silently cancelled Linux support. As one guy in the thread mentioned: The guy has taken his ball and gone home. Acting like a prima donna. The whole world has no clue but Mike has lol.

It was the purchase totals silence within the linux 'community' that inspired the decision
to stop producing more linux products. What did Ford do, when nobody bought the Edsel?
What did American Motors do when nobody bought the Marlin?

A business/corporation is made of people, all of whom need to eat.
Generation of profits enable businesses to survive and perhaps grow.
To expect the people who own a business to sacrifice the well being
of their employees and families, to support a small group of
linux musicians who routinely break their working systems with
the latest shiny update, then demand fresh support, and who
have been enabled by a decade of freebies, just doesn't make cents.
Cheers

[madmaxmiller]

Wine is a twisty curvy path, and newer is not always better,
...
So it's a twisty curvy vinyard, but with enough sonic goodness
to prune and fertilize each year, and harvest some great sounds.

When I have time, I'll try replicating the win7 paths used by Reaktor 6,
and sneakernetting the files into .wine, and then muddwrestle with the new
NI registration app...

Thanks for the great poetry here
Time is the big factor... atm I have to slave a 9-5 job to maintain the studio for better times...

Cheers,
MMM

[jonetsu]

Wine is a twisty curvy path, and newer is not always better, I keep the linux update button in a faraday cage!

The larger issue may be that some of the most desirable
pro plugins now require minimum windows 7 or higher for installation,
and choosing that setting in winecfg isn't always enough.

I don't think I ever updated a Linux system. Since mostly everything lies outside of what is known by any distro, I usually replace the OS. After install of the new distro I have to redo a few customizations, copy license files, perhaps a few installs, things like that, but that gives the opportunity to revisit some stuff.

For the time-being, I use wine 1.62 and wineRT 2.1.8 with an older reaper 5.04 and my older plugins play without issues,
but some newer high-end synth demos have failed to scan/load,
yet I have seen reports of those same plugins working in airwave, while
I have had never had a .so made by airwave show any sign of life.
Mad science.

One requirement they list is the XEMBED protocol which is found starting in 1.7.19 (current 1.9.19) . There's a patch provided, although I for one, am not readily into applying a patch and compiling Wine. Who knows, might turn out to be a snap to compile. I clearly make a distinction between music and software stuff. I can compile a few plugins, when needed but the limit of doing so is reached rather quickly.

The Airwave git page do not list Waves nor iZotope products, so I'm not convinced to spend the time seeking it out yet. Voxengo are there, though.

---

Linux world? More like 'linux county'. I've yet to see a single commercial linux developer praise a large number of linux user purchases. I think some of the developements are attempts to futureproof their business, against some calamity, and some are looking to enter the embedded markets further down the road. Mixbus seems quite unique in support for windows developing after linux and mac, and I see have some controller back in the lab. (Hopes 4 an excellent controller!)

I own Bliss, Zebra2, and Mixbus, and have used linux for audio for quite a few years. I have just enough linux fanboi platelets to think before I post, at least on Tuesdays, but I've been done with linux as a community for a while, although I continue to use the OS, as it fits my limited needs and skills quite well. Mixbus challenges them! rtfm hours in the queue.

Here Linux brings bread and butter since about 15 years, and hopefully will continue for some time. I do not run Windows at all, hence all msuic stuff is done with Linux, which is a natural in this case.

I have Bliss, although so far I do not like it as much as Redux. I might not be given it enought time, but then again I'm kind of familiar with Renoise which offers a lot in the same field, since quite a few years. From DiscoDSP I do have Discovery Pro though, and that one is special. I compare it to playing a distorted electric guitar. There's the feeling that it can go overboard and get nasty. And sometimes it does. I'm very glad to have this synth as it complements the u-he offering. None of the u-he synths can go overboard like this. They always keep nice and clean, which is very fine for them. They can get rough, but it's a clean rough I find. Although the latest from The Unfinished, Quasar, brings some distorted, unclean vibes to Zebra2/HZ.

Cheers.

[Domino]

Overtone left the linux market because of very weak sales.

Maybe it would have been different if there was an upgrade path for linuxdsp users to overtonedsp versions of the same plugins. I assume it was people like me who were willing to pay an upgrade fee but not to repurchase plugins already owned that led to their complaints about linux discount seekers.

I was willing to pay to 'upgrade' my linuxdsp lv2 plugins to the rebranded vst versions to support their linux development and basically got told to keep using the lv2s or buy the new one. It felt like my desire to help a small developer got rewarded with abandonment and greed.

Needless to say they don't need to worry about me seeking a discount any more as I just seek alternative products instead. If bad business decisions turn paying customers from advocates into avoiders, it throws away any advantage being an early player in a new market had.

[GMaq]

Hi,

Interesting points of view...

I'm not here to defend (or criticize) anyone, but perhaps I can offer a bit of background

Mike the developer of linuxDSP/OverTone is someone I've gotten to 'know' in a collaborative online sense over the years, back when LV2 was a fledgling new format Mike started his first plugins and back then there were VERY few LV2 choices that provided both world-class DSP and attractive GUI's, this was before Calf, DISTRHO, EQ-10, X-42 and the host of LV2 plugins that we take for granted now. Mike was employed at a very well known hardware console company (a competitor of Harrison) and was doing the plugin stuff on the side, his encyclopaedic hardware knowledge and super-high standards for DSP and coding were a perfect storm and as many of us know some of his plugins are still without peer...

Fast forward a couple of years and Mike was no longer employed at the console company so obviously was looking to supplement his income with his former side job. Instead of just raising prices or producing 'same old' updates to his existing stuff he decided to bring the classic Pultec and Fairchild experience to Linux users which were met largely (but not completely) with either scorn for being commercial or disinterest because I think in a pool as small as Linux Audio there are only a small percentage of a small percentage of users who even know why these plugins are so awesome and the great attention to detail that went into them. I think as time moved on and Renoise, Mixbus, Bitwig started to herald a new age of Commercial Linux Audio that was gaining acceptance with more users Mike's work was a bit ahead of the curve and his frustration with poor sales, dissatisfaction with the shifting sands and volatile development periods of LV2 culminated in a move to cross-platform VST only. Shortly after that there were some heated exchanges on the Ardour forums and here we are now.

I can't comment on who is right or wrong, I was extremely fortunate to officially distribute the linuxDSP stuff in AV Linux for many years, I still use some of them in every single Ardour and Mixbus project I do. I haven't had recent contact with Mike but over the years we've enjoyed many email discussions about music, guitars and hardware and I thought I'd point out whether right or wrong Mike is real person with a real story, I don't what will happen in the future but the fact that his code is still obtainable in LinuxVST (even if not promoted) is a tiny glimmer of hope at least..

[micksedan]

Thanks for the insites. Business is mainly about survival and growth,
unless a fraudster is running things. Fortunately, very few business decisions
are carved in stone, and things can change for the better,
hard times can be overcome, learned lessons applied. Sometimes the learning curves
seem like surfboards in a typhoon, so good balance is important.
Cheers

[madmaxmiller]

Needless to say they don't need to worry about me seeking a discount any more as I just seek alternative products instead. If bad business decisions turn paying customers from advocates into avoiders, it throws away any advantage being an early player in a new market had.

Amen.

MMM

---

I can't comment on who is right or wrong, I was extremely fortunate to officially distribute the linuxDSP stuff in AV Linux for many years, I still use some of them in every single Ardour and Mixbus project I do. I haven't had recent contact with Mike but over the years we've enjoyed many email discussions about music, guitars and hardware and I thought I'd point out whether right or wrong Mike is real person with a real story, I don't what will happen in the future but the fact that his code is still obtainable in LinuxVST (even if not promoted) is a tiny glimmer of hope at least..

Thanks Glen,

that was a good insight. I said already I loved the LinuxDSP plugins.

However, without knowing the story it looked like someone took some European Tax changes as a questionable reason to ditch the LV2 branch of his plugins and sell them a second time as VST.
I mean when LinuxDSP closed, the existing LV2 versions could have continued selling under the OvertoneDSP label and be downloadable "as is", the same way he provided older versions in LinuxDSP before.
Later he stopped Linux support alltogether with no notice.

I know myself that being good at the actual thing doesn't always come together with great business communications (MMM sigh...) so let's see if Mike would accept some help and if someone would be able and willing to do so... to bring some great plugins back to the Linux world while keeping them alive also for Win/Mac.

Cheers,
MMM